Relentless

10

Not knowing where Hargit was made it difficult: he didn’t want to sing out for Vickers and give himself away in the bargain. But if Vickers caught him creeping up Vickers would just as likely shoot him before making sure of his identity.

The thing to do was to make Vickers show himself first. He went up along the aspens on foot and kept close to the tree trunks, resenting the time this was taking; he didn’t like leaving Stevens back there alone with Hargit loose in the woods.

If Vickers had done as he’d been told he would be somewhere around here. Watchman stopped and groped in the ground-snow for a rock. When he found one big enough he gave it a heave. It made a bit of a racket crashing through the twigs and when it landed in the stream it crashed through a film of ice.

If Vickers was here it would draw his attention. But there was no sign of movement.

Twenty paces further he repeated the performance with another rock but it didn’t pull Vickers out of hiding. Watchman took a chance: he whispered Vickers’ name, loudly enough to carry a good distance.

No answer. He scowled at the creek. The grenade had made a mess of Hanratty’s body. Moonlight made a silver shine on the snow-blanketed shale slide. It was very cold now; ice was forming quickly on the surface of the creek. Probably going down below zero. He wasn’t sure of the altitude here but it was at least seven thousand feet. The top layer of ground snow was freezing hard; his feet cracked through it when he moved.

He tried to put himself in Vickers’ boots but it was hard to do, hard to figure how the man would think. Time was going by too fast and it would take too long to find Vickers’ tracks and follow them. He didn’t want to leave Buck alone that long. He stopped to concentrate his thinking.

Vickers wasn’t here; so he’d gone somewhere. Where would he go? Then Watchman had it. He turned around and went back downstream through the aspens, angling to the right away from the stream, toward the little hill where they’d left Vickers’ horse. That was where Vickers would go because that was where the walkie-talkie was.